A switched reluctance machine (SRM) is a brushless, synchronous machine having salient rotor and stator poles. There is a concentrated winding on each of the stator poles, but no windings or permanent magnets on the rotor. Each pair of diametrically opposite stator pole windings is connected in series or in parallel to form an independent machine phase winding of the multiphase SRM. Ideally, the flux entering the rotor from one stator pole balances the flux leaving the rotor from the diametrically opposite stator pole, so that there is no mutual magnetic coupling among the phases.
Torque is produced by switching current in each phase winding in a predetermined sequence that is synchronized with angular position of the rotor. In this way, a magnetic force of attraction results between the rotor poles and the stator poles that are approaching each other. The current is switched off in each phase before the rotor poles nearest the stator poles of that phase rotate past the aligned position; otherwise, the magnetic force of attraction would produce a negative, or braking, torque. In a SRM, torque direction is independent of current direction. Therefore, in contrast to most other brushless machines which require bidirectional phase currents, a SRM power inverter can be configured to enable current flow in only one direction through a phase winding. Such an inverter generally employs one or more switching devices, such as transistors or thyristors, in series with each machine phase winding. Exemplary SRM converters are illustrated in commonly assigned U.S. Pat. No. 4,684,867, issued to T. J. E. Miller on Aug. 4, 1987, which is hereby incorporated by reference.
A SRM operates by switching the machine phase currents on and off in synchronism with rotor position. That is, by properly positioning the firing pulses relative to rotor angle, forward or reverse operation and motoring or generating operation can be obtained. Usually, the desired phase current commutation is achieved by feeding back the rotor position signal to a controller from a shaft angle transducer, e.g., an encoder or a resolver.
Despite its advantages as a simple and efficient machine useful in adjustable speed drives, a SRM is typically noisy. In large part, this is due to the "ovaling" of the stator during machine operation. "Ovaling" refers to the tendency of the stator to flatten and thereby assume an oval shape during machine operation, resulting from the electromagnetic attraction between the rotor poles of the machine and the diametrically-opposed stator poles of each energized phase. Therefore, an object of the present invention is to reduce the "ovaling" effect of an SRM stator as it rotates, thereby reducing the acoustic noise generated during SRM operation.